Seven Nights in a Rogue's Bed (18 page)

“I don’t care,” Sidonie said, her heart sinking. What if Jonas was gone for days? She couldn’t linger as an interloper forever.

She’d worry about that when she had to.

Jonas thought she’d rush off the instant she got Roberta’s vowels. Why would he imagine anything else? But as she read uncharacteristic pity in Mrs. Bevan’s faded eyes, Sidonie couldn’t dismiss the depressing knowledge that she was making a complete fool of herself.

Again.

“Be ee still here, miss?”

At Mrs. Bevan’s question, Sidonie stirred from where she’d slumped in the hard chair. She stretched and winced as muscles complained after extended immobility against unforgiving surfaces. “What time is it?”

Mrs. Bevan’s lantern made the shadows loom darker. “Near eight. Be ee wanting supper?”

Sidonie had hardly eaten all day but her stomach churned at the prospect of food. “No, thank you.”

“I brung ee this.”

Shocked, Sidonie noticed that Mrs. Bevan extended a cup of tea in her direction. “Th-thank you.”

“Why don’t ee go up to bed? Ee can’t bide here all night. Maister may be away a week.”

“I don’t care.”

“Ee be a stubborn wench.”

Definitely.

“If ee be set on waiting maister out, why not bide in the book room? It be warmer and I’ll set ee a fire.”

Some superstitious corner of Sidonie’s mind insisted that she must catch Jonas the moment he came inside or she’d miss her chance and find herself on her way to Barstowe Hall after all. She couldn’t explain this to Mrs. Bevan. Even to herself, it sounded irrational. “I’m fine here.”

The woman’s dismissive sniff indicated her opinion of that remark. “Ee be mad as maister.”

Probably.

Sidonie lifted the teacup and took a sip. The warmth was welcome. With nightfall, the temperature had dropped uncomfortably low. She waited for Mrs. Bevan
to return belowstairs but she continued to stare at Sidonie as if she gawked at an exhibit at a fair. Or more likely Bedlam, Sidonie thought with a grim spurt of amusement.

“Ee mightn’t credit this but maister was the sweetest lad I ever beheld.”

Not just a cup of tea, but confidences. What was the world coming to? Still, Sidonie couldn’t pretend she wasn’t interested. “Have you been with the family so long?”

“Mr. Bevan and I joined the late viscount’s service just afore his wife passed. Sad days.

“The lad, maister he now be, were only two then. His old lordship were lost in a world of his own aften her ladyship went. Out of his head with grief, he were. Raising the lad fell to me and Bevan. O’ course, we bided at Barstowe Hall then. His lordship were always one for flitting hither and yon. Chasing dusty old books. Couldn’t see use of it meself. Mostly young maister bided home without his father, such a loving, sunny bairn he were.”

Sidonie had difficulty imagining dark, complicated Jonas Merrick as a sunny child. Especially as the picture Mrs. Bevan painted of his childhood was a lonely one.

“Then the lad were called baseborn and the bad times started. The world be cruel to bastards. There bain’t much sunshine in Jonas Merrick’s life since he were eight year old.”

“Did you go with the family to Venice?”

“Aye. Though I’ve no truck with furriners.”

Mrs. Bevan must know how Jonas had been scarred. Sidonie bit down the urge to ask. He’d hate to think she’d gone behind his back to find out. “Were you in Italy long?”

“Till his old lordship passed on, must have been ’17. Horrible smelly place Venice were. Water e’en where
streets should be. Though I were right glad to be there when his lordship left for eastern parts afore young maister’s scars could heal. I wouldn’t trust furrin servants with the lad’s care. Doon’ like to speak ill of the dead but that were ill done of his lordship, to up and go like that. His lordship should have bided at least till the lad weren’t at death’s door no more, but after his wife passed on, he never could bear one place long.”

Horrified, disbelieving, Sidonie stiffened against her chair. She hardly believed it, especially after the loving way Jonas spoke of the late viscount. Had Jonas’s father left him to the care of servants after the attack? It seemed selfish to the point of devilry. And Jonas had been young when he was injured, she’d gathered from the few hints he dropped, no older than an adolescent. Hardly surprising Jonas was so determined to rely on nobody but himself, so sure that the world was likely to kick him in the teeth before it offered a greeting.

“Why are you telling me this?”

Mrs. Bevan shrugged and reached for the empty teacup. “Had an inkling ee might be interested. Had an inkling ee might have ideas of brightening maister’s life. Now, be ee off to sleep like a Christian?”

Sidonie refused to be drawn on the subject of brightening Jonas’s life. Mrs. Bevan was a cunning old vixen. She’d seen more than Sidonie had realized. “No, I’ll wait here.”

“Suit eeself.” Mrs. Bevan shuffled away after pausing to light a lamp on one of the wooden chests. “I bid ee good e’en.”

Sightlessly Sidonie stared into the darkness, her mind whirling with what she’d learned. She’d always known Jonas had led a difficult life. For heaven’s sake, one only
had to glimpse his face to know that. But hearing he’d been set to grow up a completely different man made her heart contract with pity. Even more as she knew that the boy’s generous, affectionate spirit still lived inside him, much as he struggled against acknowledging its existence. She’d seen flashes of it, most recently last night after her wild dash into the storm.

She admired that even a trace of the loving, sweet child remained. His life had been nothing but betrayal, from the moment he was declared bastard. Even earlier than that, when his mother died and his father descended into a chasm of sorrow.

She couldn’t continue to betray him.

Once she returned to Barstowe Hall, she’d make sure Roberta was hidden out of William’s reach, even if it meant her sister was forced to live as a fugitive. Then she’d write to Jonas with the truth about his legitimacy. She probably should tell him immediately, but she couldn’t forget the way he’d spoken to the duke, dismissing Roberta’s claims on his compassion in favor of his quest for revenge against his cousin. Once Roberta was safe, Jonas Merrick was welcome to take back his inheritance.

Stiff and tired, Jonas eased himself off Casimir’s back in the stables. Instead of removing the horse’s tack, he leaned against the beast’s heaving, sweaty sides. It was late, nearly midnight. And cold as a witch’s tit. He’d been out since before dawn after days of interrupted sleep and no sleep at all last night. Leaving Sidonie, he’d fled the house—and temptation—to one of the dilapidated follies that punctuated the overgrown garden.

Casimir whickered and turned his head to bump his
master in wordless comfort. The horse’s company was about all he could bear today.

Although encroaching company wasn’t exactly a pressing concern. The vast house awaiting him was empty of the one person who’d given it life. Since boyhood, he’d felt alone and despised, but he’d never before sunk so low. He felt like a mongrel cur booted to the gutter. He felt like shit stuck to his worst enemy’s shoe.

He felt remarkably sorry for himself.

Impossible to summon the joyless, dogged determination that had always kept him going through life’s vicissitudes. All he could manage was the gloomy premonition that he’d be lonely as long as he lived.

He’d done the right thing this morning. Sending Sidonie Forsythe back to her family as innocent as the day she’d arrived put him on the side of the angels.

Almost as innocent.

No, he refused to recall her pleasure. Or her kisses. That way lay only misery. His father always said doing the right thing was its own reward. Just now Jonas would dearly love to take issue with that opinion.

He didn’t know how long he huddled against Casimir. He appreciated the horse’s uncomplaining placidity. But a man couldn’t spend his life skulking in a stable, however much he might wish to. Still, he wondered why he bothered to go through the motions as he settled Casimir, then plodded through the freezing, starry night to the castle. His candle lit the way through the silent, cold house. He’d got used to it as silent and cold before Sidonie arrived. He’d get used to it again.

The assurance rang as hollow as his footsteps on the flagstones.

He could sleep in his own bed tonight. But how could he endure lying in sheets that smelled of Sidonie? Until he arranged for another room prepared to his standards, he was consigned to the dressing room.

Not that he cared. He wasn’t likely to sleep.

Right now, even though his eyes were gritty and every muscle ached after hard riding, he doubted he’d ever sleep again. Castle Craven was rumored to be haunted. For him it was. Sidonie’s memory would linger forever.

With his wicked plan in ashes, he could leave. The problem was, unless Sidonie waited at the end of his journey, he had no interest in going elsewhere. If he could gather the energy, he should get a gun and put himself out of everyone’s misery.

Inured to its atmosphere of ancient malevolence, he stepped into the hall. Nothing, not even threat of spiteful ghosts, competed with the chill inside him. He would come back to life again. Eventually. People did unless fate took a drastic hand, he supposed.

Jonas was so sunk in gloom, he was halfway across the cavernous room before he noticed a light against the far wall. It was unlike Mrs. Bevan to leave a lamp for him after he’d been carousing. Not that he’d had the stomach for drinking. One day he might find fleeting solace in the bottom of a tankard. Tonight his sorrow extended beyond alcohol’s reach.

He trudged forward to blow out the lamp. And stopped as if he’d crashed into a wall of glass, astonished to realize why it was there.

“Sidonie?” he whispered, afraid if he spoke too loudly she’d disappear. His heart thudded so violently, he was surprised the sound didn’t wake her.

If he’d been drinking, he’d doubt the evidence of his eyes. Unless he’d gone mad indeed since this morning, Sidonie Forsythe hadn’t left at her first chance. Instead she stretched across two of the hellishly uncomfortable chairs that formed the hall’s principal furnishing.

She stirred at the sound of her name, but didn’t wake. With an unsteady hand, he raised his candle to study her. Her cheek upon her hand, she’d curled up like a cat under one of his old coats. Thick lashes resting on pale cheeks lent an impression of innocence. He felt like a satyr for what he wanted from her. This was why he’d lurked in a dank stone pagoda all night, cursing unruly desire and virtuous women and his inconvenient conscience.

Damn it, he should have left a note telling her she was free to go. During the short hours remaining of last night, in his head he’d written thousands of words to her. Because he couldn’t say enough, he’d said nothing. He’d assumed she’d immediately understand that he relinquished all hold over her.

Why the deuce hadn’t she gone?

The world accounted him a brave man. He wasn’t sure he was brave enough to send Sidonie away when she hovered within reach. Such a coward was the infamous Jonas Merrick. After all his weaselly avoidances, now he still had to say good-bye to her face. The prospect of putting a bullet in his brain became more appealing by the minute.

“Sidonie,” he repeated more insistently.

Her eyes cracked open and stared at him groggily. For a dazzled interval, he swam in endless brown and felt so damned happy to see her, devil take the rest of the world.

Sidonie wasn’t sure where she was. Except she’d heard Jonas speak her name. Just the sound of his voice filled her with elation.

She stared at him, transfixed by the unabashed delight in his face. Then he straightened and stepped back. A chill dropped over his expression so he looked stern and not at all like the man who had smiled at her as though she was his dearest treasure.

Oh, how she wished she was his dearest treasure.

“What are you doing here?” he asked sharply.

Disoriented and stiff from her makeshift bed, she struggled to sit. Mrs. Bevan must have dropped a coat over her at some stage. Even so, she was frozen. She clutched the thick folds to her and remembered Jonas giving her his coat last night to keep her from the storm.

“Is it late?” Her voice emerged as a croak.

“After midnight.” His scowl didn’t lighten. “Answer me.”

It didn’t occur to her to lie to save her pride. What was the point? He’d discover soon enough she’d flattened every defense. She brushed back the strands of hair tickling her face. She must look a complete disaster. “I’m waiting for you.”

He made an impatient gesture. The ruby glittered evilly in the candlelight. “No, I mean what are you doing still at the castle? I thought you’d be long gone.”

She flinched. He sounded irritated. The tiny kernel of certainty that he couldn’t turn from her so abruptly shriveled. She’d never been fool enough to expect a declaration of undying devotion, but this irascible stranger made her cringe. “I thought—”

He silenced her with another angry wave of his hand.
“This is madness. You’ve got Roberta’s vowels. I didn’t expect a good-bye. I expected you to take your precious chastity and run.”

She flushed as the last mists of sleep faded. God help her, she’d made a terrible mistake. “I thought—” Her voice cracked and she started again. “I thought you surrendered Roberta’s vowels to leave me free to choose what happened between us.”

His mouth tightened. “That’s why I gave them to you. So you were free to bring this disaster to an end.”

He was blunt to the point of spite. She’d only known him a few days. He shouldn’t be able to carve her heart into bloody strips with a few words. She’d derided pride as a useless luxury when she decided to challenge her dismissal. Now pride insisted she couldn’t cry before him.

“I should go,” she said shakily.

“Exactly.” He stepped back as if her presence offended him. “But it’s too late tonight.”

She rose on unsteady legs, feeling sick, wishing herself anywhere but here, wishing she’d taken the powerful hint and left this morning. “I’m sorry.”